A British, an American, a French Buddhism

Preceptors at the Grand Rapids Buddhist Temple

Sunday, 19 April, 2015 

One drawback, to my mind, of maintaining the Asian ritual, customs, and language when we teach Buddhism in the West is the danger of mistaking the trappings for the truth. The ability to throw around foreign terminology, chant in a strange tongue, and wear odd-looking clothes does not make one more fully awake to the true nature of human existence.

"Eventually," the Dalai Lama has predicted, "through a kind of evolution and without changing the essence, there will truly develop a British Buddhism, or an American Buddhism, or a French Buddhism. This is not only possible, but necessary, because this allows the essence of Buddhism to be more easily available to individuals in these cultures."

---Dinty W. Moore, in The Accidental Buddhist---